When marketers describe how they select an agency, the process sounds structured. Long lists. Formal briefs. Credentials reviewed. Pitches compared. In practice, the journey usually begins somewhere much simpler – with the agencies people have already heard of. A recommendation from a peer. An agency someone used in a previous role.
At first glance, this looks like a shortcut. It isn’t. It’s how complex purchasing decisions are filtered.
Shortlists form early
Research shows that 78% of B2B buyers shortlist just three vendors, and 90% ultimately choose from that shortlist (Wynter, 2024). By the time a formal process begins, the real filtering has already happened and reputation and recommendation are usually what drove it.
This matters because B2B buying decisions carry real uncertainty. Budgets are large, outcomes take time to materialise, and stakeholders are numerous. Peer validation reduces that risk in a way no credentials pack can. When someone recommends an agency, they are sharing the results of their own experience. They sharing evidence that the agency works in the real world.
Good work is expected. Silence is a signal too.
In B2B, delivering quality work on time is not a differentiator. It’s the baseline. What travels between organisations is the departure from that baseline in either direction. A successful project is often quietly appreciated. A poor experience creates a story that surfaces years later, in different companies, attached to a name.
The way people remember service relationships is not balanced. Clients rarely volunteer praise the way they share a bad experience. So, when someone recommends an agency, they are signalling something important: not just that the work was good, but that nothing went badly enough to stop them recommending at all. The absence of a bad story is itself part of the endorsement.
Recommendations come pre-filtered
The people most likely to recommend an agency to you occupy a similar professional world – similar sector, similar seniority, similar problems. Their recommendation has already passed through a filter of relevance before it reaches you. No RFI or industry award can replicate that.
But that doesn’t mean accepting recommendations passively. Use them as a starting rule, not a conclusion. Seek out work the agency has done that you find relevant — don’t let them curate your due diligence. Look for examples that match your specific challenge, sector and audience, not just the showpiece cases they put forward.
The agencies most recommended are often the least visible
There is a counterintuitive pattern worth noting. Agencies that attract consistent recommendations are not always the most visible ones. They’re hidden in plain sight. They do not run campaigns promoting themselves. They do not fill industry newsfeeds with thought leadership. They may not appear on the first page of a Google search. And yet, within the sectors and professional communities they serve, their name comes up constantly.
You hear it in conversations between marketing directors at industry events. You see it in the quiet acknowledgement – “we’ve used them for years.” You notice it when two people in different organisations independently mention the same agency without knowing the other has worked with them. That is not a coincidence. That is what a well-earned reputation looks like from the outside.
It can feel almost counterintuitive to trust an agency you have never seen promoting itself. But the logic is straightforward: if an agency has more work than it can handle through referrals alone, it has little reason to advertise. The absence of noise is not a warning sign. In many cases, it is the opposite.
Heavy investment in self-promotion sometimes reflects the other side of that coin — agencies compensating for a pipeline that is not coming through word of mouth. Low profile, in specialist B2B sectors, is often a quietly positive indicator.
At Velo, this is the model we have built on. Since 2010, the majority of our work has come through recommendations from marketing leaders in technology, manufacturing and professional services who have moved between organisations, carried their experience with them, and passed our name on. We have never relied on being the loudest agency in the room. We have relied on doing the work well enough that people talk about it when we are not there. That can be an uncommon way to build a business. It is also, we think, the right way.
It’s not a shortcut. It’s how experienced buyers work.
Starting with the agency someone you trust has already worked with reflects how most complex B2B buying decisions are actually made. People narrow the field early, rely on signals that reduce risk, and shortlist only a handful of vendors.
Recommendation fits neatly into that process. It doesn’t replace evaluation — chemistry, case studies and sector experience still determine whether the fit is right. But it focuses evaluation on agencies that have already been tested in conditions similar to yours, by people whose judgment you have reason to trust.
Interested in whether Velo might be the right fit for your organisation? Get in touch.